Deborah Bogen: October

A train pulls into the station. Passengers break like billiard balls, glide to cars and uses. Ezekiel the pushcart vendor hawks his hot potatoes. This is the month of the dead and the undead. We wrap our hands around good fortune, shove them deep into our pockets.

The moon’s been reincarnated, a baby afloat in the amniotic sky. It makes us think about our next lives, of how perfection will be our undergarments. In our next lives, we think, our eyes will shine like truth’s own saucers. But for now it’s October, the month of witches, of prayers to the old gods. We toss confetti into the air, clap our hands three times. Crows cackle as they rise.

Deborah Bogen is the author of In Case of Sudden Free Fall published by Jacar Press.

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Copyright 2002 Deborah Bogen. From Living by the Children’s Cemetery. Chosen by Edward Hirsch for the 2002 Byline Press Poetry Prize.

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